The Campaign’ comes to DVD

Will Ferrell stars in “The Campaign.”

In “The Campaign,” Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis star as rivals in a nasty North Carolina congressional race. The film, directed by Jay Roach, isn’t quite edgy enough to be a satire, but it is funny enough to let us laugh at what too often seems like a broken political system.

Ferrell is Cam Brady, a malleable congressman backed by the billionaire Motch brothers, played by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd. But when Cam is slow to fast-track a shady deal the Motchs have with their Chinese business partners, they recruit the wimpy Marty Huggins (Galifianakis), whose father was a local political bigwig, to run against him.

Both Cam and Marty are clowns, so uninformed and desperate to be elected that you can’t believe them — unless you listen to some real people really running for Congress (or who are already in). The only difference is that Ferrell and Galifianakis are actually playing their characters for laughs. Otherwise the joke’s on us.

True, the film has the candidates doing outrageous things that even actual office seekers haven’t tried — like an attack ad/sex tape — but Cam’s campaign slogan of “America, Jesus, Freedom” is meant to sound about as empty as many real ones.

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“Safety Not Guaranteed” is an inventive little indie comedy that shows sometimes a little concept can go a long way.

Aubrey Plaza, proving she’s someone to watch, plays a young journalist named Darius working at a Seattle magazine. There, the editors have come across a small anonymous personal ad from someone looking for a time-traveling companion. “Must bring your own weapons,” the ad says. “Safety not guaranteed.” The address is a post-office box in a small town in Washington state. (The movie was inspired by a real ad in the ’90s).

Darius’ boss, Jeff (“New Girl’s” Jake Johnson), desperate for a story, decides to track down the supposed time traveler, bringing along Darius and intern Arnau (Karan Soni). Jeff, who is having his own problems, has other motives for the trip and hopes to track down an old flame. Darius and Arnau are sent to stake out the post office, where they spot Kenneth (Mark Duplass), owner of the post-office box. Kenneth, as it turns out, wants to return to 2001 to rescue a girlfriend who died.

“Safety Not Guaranteed” is delightfully offbeat and amusing, and surprisingly touching.

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“Ruby Sparks” is another enjoyable indie film. Paul Dano plays Calvin Weir-Fields, a self-absorbed Los Angeles writer who had a best-seller and literary success at 19 but a decade later is still looking for a follow-up. One day while walking his dog he meets a young woman named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan, who also wrote the script).

Is she a figment of his imagination? He thinks so until one day he wakes up to find her making breakfast in his house, and everything he’s written about her so far is true. He’s convinced he’s hallucinating until his brother (Chris Messina) meets her and confirms she’s real. He realizes then that he can flesh her out, so to speak.

Nicely directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the team behind “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Ruby Sparks” is an amusing premise that Kazan cleverly plays out to a satisfying conclusion while turning in a sharp performance.

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BBC America’s “Copper,” which has been renewed for a second season, proved to be fairly interesting during its first season.

It stars Tom Weston-Jones as Irish immigrant Kevin “Corky” Corcoran, a Civil War veteran who has become a New York City policeman in 1864, the year after the city’s deadly draft riots. It’s set around the notorious Five Points slum, though the action moves to other parts of the city including uptown seats of power such as Park Avenue, as well as into a rural neighborhood that was settled by freed blacks.

Corcoran, a former boxer, has returned from the conflict to find that his daughter is dead and his wife is missing. That mystery propels him as he metes out justice as a lawman, sometimes becoming judge, jury and executioner.